Speaker 1: Ordinarily Speaking, I wouldn't be giving such an in depth
Speaker 1: chat about myself and my story, but hopefully some of
Speaker 1: the challenges of face will help other people.
Speaker 2: To Hello and welcome to Ordinarily Speaking, a podcast that
Speaker 2: celebrates resilience in sport. I'm Narrowly Meadows and my guest
Speaker 2: today is former AFL coach and player John Warsfold, or
Speaker 2: Usher as he's known. Usher has taken on some of
Speaker 2: the most challenging coaching jobs in footy. He enjoyed testing
Speaker 2: times at West Coast, took on a role at Adelaide
Speaker 2: following the death of their coach and his mate Phil Walsh,
Speaker 2: and he put his hand up for the job of
Speaker 2: guiding Essendon out of the most tumultuous period in the
Speaker 2: club's history, the aftermath of the supplement scandal. The Premiership
Speaker 2: player and coach's meticulous dedication to the job has at
Speaker 2: times been tough on his wife and kids. In the
Speaker 2: more recent years of his coaching career, he lived in
Speaker 2: a different state to his family altogether. In this episode
Speaker 2: of Ordinarily Speaking, the man known as Wusher speaks candidly
Speaker 2: about the true toll of a nineteen year coaching career
Speaker 2: in the AFL we met at his house in Perth.
Speaker 2: The only footy photo in view a pick of he
Speaker 2: and his premiership teammate Chris Mainwaring, who died suddenly in
Speaker 2: two thousand and seven. As always, please remember if this
Speaker 2: chat is triggering for you, there is help out there.
Speaker 2: Beyond Blue and Lifeline are just a couple of places
Speaker 2: you can go. I hope you enjoyed this chat with
Speaker 2: a man who generally prefers silence fashion well, thanks very
Speaker 2: much for joining me. I've spoken to a few of
Speaker 2: your mates and a few of the players that you've
Speaker 2: coached in the build up to this. I've got to
Speaker 2: say each and every one of them were surprised that
Speaker 2: you've agreed to do it, which begs the question why
Speaker 2: have you agreed to come on?
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean when you asked me and
Speaker 1: you explained to me what it's about, I thought, why not.
Speaker 1: Now I'm not hiding anything. I get the feeling that
Speaker 1: it's about helping people. It's not about me telling my story.
Speaker 1: It's about hopefully people taking something out that helps them,
Speaker 1: so that would be the reason I'm doing it. I mean,
Speaker 1: if it was just about tell us about your life
Speaker 1: and how good you are. I probably wouldn't have but
Speaker 1: to talk about working through some of the pretty intense
Speaker 1: situations I've been through, and I feel like I've come
Speaker 1: out of them still pretty sane and cope pretty well.
Speaker 1: If I can share some of those strategies, then that'd
Speaker 1: be great.
Speaker 2: From mates two players you've coached, the one thing that
Speaker 2: kept coming up is that you can sustain a silence
Speaker 2: better than anyone. That you are a steel trap, a
Speaker 2: king of the awkward silence, are the best person ever
Speaker 2: to force you to talk by not saying anything at all.
Speaker 2: Is that a fair assessment?
Speaker 3: Probably?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, I suppose My nature is an introvert.
Speaker 3: I like to listen.
Speaker 1: Obviously, while I'm listening, I'm thinking, and I will not
Speaker 1: really give a response unless I'm absolutely comfortable in terms
Speaker 1: of the trust I have with that person. And you know,
Speaker 1: that's been a good thing for me, but it's probably
Speaker 1: also been a tough thing to deal with at times
Speaker 1: as well.
Speaker 2: Your wife, Georgina here, she's absolutely the opposite of that
Speaker 2: and a real people person and super bubbly.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, she's the one when we go to a
Speaker 1: football function and it's really like I'm at work. I
Speaker 1: suppose I'm trying to get out the door and say, look,
Speaker 1: we've done our bit, time to go, and there's at
Speaker 1: least thirty minutes of goodbyes. So yeah, Georgiana is very
Speaker 1: much comfortable mixing with people. She actually is now a
Speaker 1: lifeline counselor, so she volunteers to do some of that work,
Speaker 1: which she really enjoys. So she listens and has got
Speaker 1: that great nature.
Speaker 2: Tell me about your wife. What made you fall in
Speaker 2: love with her?
Speaker 1: Well, I don't know. It was just an attraction of
Speaker 1: It's hard to say. I mean I met her at
Speaker 1: a nightclub, so it wasn't like the greatest how we
Speaker 1: both feel in here, but I just felt something like
Speaker 1: as in I met her and then didn't see her
Speaker 1: again for a couple of months. I think, like the
Speaker 1: next day we were heading off on a players trip somewhere. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't really follow up at all. So was it
Speaker 1: your dance moves or it wouldn't have been that. No,
Speaker 1: there's no doubt about that. But maybe I look really sad.
Speaker 1: I've got a feeling we just lost the ninety one
Speaker 1: Grand Final, so yeah, maybe I was opening around, but yeah, anyway,
Speaker 1: I just followed up it would have been a couple
Speaker 1: of months later, and I think something happened where sort
Speaker 1: of offered to take her out for a meal and
Speaker 1: then she couldn't do it, And then I waited another
Speaker 1: couple of months before I fight up again. Anyway, then
Speaker 1: we managed to actually meet and have a chat and
Speaker 1: hit it off.
Speaker 2: And all these years on. What do you love about
Speaker 2: her now?
Speaker 1: Well, she's such a people person. She's always looking out
Speaker 1: for people. It's probably one of the things she has
Speaker 1: to be careful of that she doesn't burn herself out
Speaker 1: looking out for everyone else. But she's worked out that
Speaker 1: she believes she can help people through her ability to
Speaker 1: listen to them and get them to open up. And
Speaker 1: so she took that on herself to do the Lifeline
Speaker 1: counseling course, which is a pretty big commitment just to
Speaker 1: be a volunteer for them. And you know, for me,
Speaker 1: that would be something that I couldn't do. But that's
Speaker 1: a natural thing for her and she feels like she's
Speaker 1: making a strong contribution to the community. You know, I
Speaker 1: think that's a really strong trait.
Speaker 2: Has she been that for you the sounding board?
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, she's probably one person who can get
Speaker 1: me to talk a little bit.
Speaker 3: But even then I'm.
Speaker 1: Still fairly guarded. But yeah, I certainly go to her
Speaker 1: for advice on different things and for someone to see
Speaker 1: something totally different than me. I asked Georgina House she
Speaker 1: would see things or perceive things, and yeah, that's been awesome.
Speaker 2: How does she perceive your public persona and your press conferences?
Speaker 2: What does she make of them?
Speaker 1: I think she knows. I'm just towing the line, the
Speaker 1: club line, like supporting the club, supporting the players, never
Speaker 1: throw anyone under the bus, even if it was in
Speaker 1: the case of defend yourself first and don't support everyone else.
Speaker 1: It's like, no, I'm going to support everyone first. And that,
Speaker 1: I would say, would be something that frustrates her at times,
Speaker 1: where she says, you should have stood up for yourself
Speaker 1: in that situation, and I would say, I'd gain nothing
Speaker 1: from trying to defend myself. My actions will always stand
Speaker 1: the test of time, not a once off criticism that
Speaker 1: someone wants to try and spark a reaction.
Speaker 2: It must be hard for a family, though, to sit
Speaker 2: back and watch it all unfold.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would say that's the most stressful thing. I
Speaker 1: don't get stressed by the public or the media reaction.
Speaker 1: I would get stressed by how it's affected my family.
Speaker 1: So when I come home, if Georgina or the kids
Speaker 1: look out, they're just saying that person shouldn't have said that,
Speaker 1: or that was wrong. What they wrote there that affects
Speaker 1: you more than what was actually written, because I would
Speaker 1: say to them, it's just opinions. That just the industry.
Speaker 1: Everyone's going to do that. Don't take it personally. But
Speaker 1: they're more protective of me that I am of myself,
Speaker 1: I think, so I would say to look, what stresses
Speaker 1: me the most is what's happening.
Speaker 3: In my world.
Speaker 1: It's my work world, it's what's happening in my personal world,
Speaker 1: and if you guys are affected by it, then that
Speaker 1: makes me up tight and stressed, not what was actually written.
Speaker 2: Have you felt misunderstood over the years.
Speaker 1: I don't really feel like I've been misunderstood, but I
Speaker 1: don't think too many people have made an effort to
Speaker 1: understand me personally and then therefore.
Speaker 3: How I work and how I operate. But that doesn't
Speaker 3: fade me.
Speaker 1: I've made a decision when I started coaching that I
Speaker 1: will do it on my own. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: form alliances with any media people. I told my first
Speaker 1: statement to all my friends that i'd created or built
Speaker 1: up in the media through my playing career. You know,
Speaker 1: anything on the record from then on, even off the record, has.
Speaker 3: To go through the football club.
Speaker 1: You have to let them know that you want to
Speaker 1: get a statement from me or talk to me. You
Speaker 1: can't just approach me direct, which they had done in
Speaker 1: the past. Some took that really well. Some were a
Speaker 1: bit well, they made out they were offended by it.
Speaker 1: I just think they saw it was like, I thought
Speaker 1: I had a really good in here. I've been working
Speaker 1: with you or alongside you closely for a number of years.
Speaker 3: Now you have seen your coach beautiful. That's going to
Speaker 3: help my job.
Speaker 1: But when I said to them, no, it's not, I
Speaker 1: think they felt like, well, that makes it a bit tougher.
Speaker 1: But I stuck through that through my whole twenty years.
Speaker 1: Times I've seen other articles written some coaches. You get
Speaker 1: the feeling that they've had a journalist in the corner.
Speaker 1: When someone attacks them, another journalist will write a really
Speaker 1: balanced piece for them. But I've chosen not to have
Speaker 1: that relationship and just do it on my own. So
Speaker 1: that's part of maybe being misunderstood is that I've been
Speaker 1: a bit more of a closed book.
Speaker 2: The moment that I worked out or decided that I'd
Speaker 2: really like to interview you in some sort of capacity.
Speaker 2: I was hosting the Coaches Awards in twenty nineteen and
Speaker 2: you got up at the end and kind of made
Speaker 2: an impromptu speech. You were just there to give an
Speaker 2: award out and you decide to make a speech. Do
Speaker 2: you remember that speech and the realization you kind of
Speaker 2: had that night?
Speaker 1: I do remember, yeah, exactly what you're saying. I wasn't
Speaker 1: meant to give a sp each was basically just present
Speaker 1: the award, but Chris Fagan spoke, and a couple of
Speaker 1: the other people who had spoken. I was sitting there thinking, wow,
Speaker 1: it was just a realization for me, and I think, well,
Speaker 1: what I spoke about was, you know that football can
Speaker 1: just totally encompass all your thoughts to the point where
Speaker 1: when I thought of, you know, twenty years on from
Speaker 1: ninety ninety four, that was a twenty year reunion of
Speaker 1: our premiership, West Coast Premiership. Not that was my twenty
Speaker 1: year wedding anniversary, and when that football stuff overrides the
Speaker 1: family personal stuff, it was a bit of a bit
Speaker 1: of a wake up call for me. Luckily, I still
Speaker 1: did remember that it was my wedding anniversary. Yea, but yeah,
Speaker 1: thinking about oh, it's a big year this year, it's
Speaker 1: twenty years since we won the flag. Not it's twenty
Speaker 1: years since I got married. So, and there's various examples
Speaker 1: of that through my career where you just immerse yourself
Speaker 1: so much into your role you have to be like
Speaker 1: living and breathing it. You can miss some really important
Speaker 1: things that are happening with your family in particular, definitely
Speaker 1: with friends. I'm sure I've let a lot of friends
Speaker 1: down over the years. But there was another example which
Speaker 1: was only last year. So I'm trying to remember the
Speaker 1: years because this COVID year is throw everything.
Speaker 2: Out, but it's ten years one year.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Last year my son was in year twelve having his
Speaker 1: Year twelve ball, so a big night for him. And
Speaker 1: it was a Tuesday night in late in the season,
Speaker 1: and I wasn't going to be able to get there.
Speaker 1: I think we've played on the weekend. We're planning again
Speaker 1: on either Friday or Saturday. We've got main training. I
Speaker 1: can't get there. We've got match committee and right up
Speaker 1: until so three four weeks out it's like I've resigned myself.
Speaker 1: I can't get over there to just time to have
Speaker 1: a good night and be there as he gets ready.
Speaker 1: And then Georgia asked me a couple of weeks out,
Speaker 1: you're sure you can't get over it, and I was like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, I've looked at the fixtures, look at our
Speaker 1: training schedule, and it's just impossible to get over there.
Speaker 1: And Georgina asked me, I think two days prior you
Speaker 1: sure you can't get here.
Speaker 3: And.
Speaker 1: Something clipped and I just said, of course I can,
Speaker 1: and jumped on a plane landed in Perth at about
Speaker 1: I don't know, say two o'clock on Tuesday. Charlie got
Speaker 1: home from school at three point thirty. Georgina said to him,
Speaker 1: I've got a surprise for you in the bedroom.
Speaker 3: He thought it was going to be like his little
Speaker 3: flower or what.
Speaker 1: Have you given it me, don't do that. And you
Speaker 1: know I was here for him to get ready. He
Speaker 1: had some mates over and then we sent him off
Speaker 1: at seven o'clock and at ten o'clock I was on
Speaker 1: a plane back to Melbourne. So I was here for
Speaker 1: maybe six or seven hours. But yeah, you know you
Speaker 1: can miss those things and there's small things, but he
Speaker 1: remembers it.
Speaker 3: He knows I was here, and he knows you I
Speaker 3: went to.
Speaker 1: And I nearly missed it. I was so close to
Speaker 1: not doing that because I.
Speaker 2: Was busy, And that was another moment that you went off.
Speaker 2: You know, I've got my priorities wrong? Or how did
Speaker 2: you know? How did you word it?
Speaker 1: It was just that realization that I love footy as
Speaker 1: a hobby. It's not my life as much as I
Speaker 1: would say it's. It's been my vocation's been my job.
Speaker 1: It's been my passion footy sport since I was a kid.
Speaker 1: But you know, just being there for your kids, your
Speaker 1: wife at those important moments is more than anything. So
Speaker 1: somehow you need to have ideally yourself, but someone in
Speaker 1: your life that may be strange.
Speaker 3: You up at times and have you got your priorities right?
Speaker 2: You tear up reflecting on it. You must be extremely
Speaker 2: grateful that you got there in the end.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, you know to see his Charlie's face and
Speaker 1: how proud he was that I was there, that's like
Speaker 1: you don't think your kids are proud of you? And
Speaker 1: you know we have our bantwer and we muck around.
Speaker 1: But that was a moment that he couldn't hide. You know,
Speaker 1: he just he'd resigned himself. That's not going to be
Speaker 1: he can't get over. So he was just wrapped. So
Speaker 1: when his mates came over, a lot of them I
Speaker 1: hadn't met, so he had the pre's, the pre cordials.
Speaker 1: He just took me around, introduced me to all his mates,
Speaker 1: and you know, that's I could see that he was
Speaker 1: just proud to do that, that his dad was here
Speaker 1: because their dads had brought them over to drop them off,
Speaker 1: and it was so special.
Speaker 2: That is special. You've missed a lot of that stuff.
Speaker 2: I imagine in telling that story, you're sort of accepting
Speaker 2: of the fact that you missed a lot of stuff,
Speaker 2: and you almost got to the point where you forgot
Speaker 2: what you were missing.
Speaker 3: In a way you can do, yeah, you can just
Speaker 3: roll on.
Speaker 1: I spent my last three years at Essendon in Melbourne
Speaker 1: while my family had relocated to Perth.
Speaker 3: Again.
Speaker 1: That was just that's fine. I've got a job to do.
Speaker 1: I'm doing my work. I'm at the footy club. Get up,
Speaker 1: love going there every day, get home to an empty,
Speaker 1: empty apartment. But it was just like, have your meal,
Speaker 1: get to bed.
Speaker 3: Get ready to go tomorrow.
Speaker 1: And when I came home for Christmas at the end
Speaker 1: of those those years, I came and had a suitcase
Speaker 1: open in my bedroom in my family home. Because I
Speaker 1: was going to be here for three or four weeks.
Speaker 1: I didn't really feel like I had a home while
Speaker 1: I was here. I was living out of a seatcase.
Speaker 1: When I was in Melbourne, I was just a place
Speaker 1: to sleep in between work. But I never once sat
Speaker 1: there thinking why am I doing this? I'm not happy.
Speaker 1: It was just enough. I've got a commitment that I've
Speaker 1: got to make and I'm going to see this through.
Speaker 1: But yeah, within a few weeks of being back in Perth,
Speaker 1: maybe after I got through my quarantine, I felt like
Speaker 1: I was home.
Speaker 3: I felt like.
Speaker 1: I'm back, and really i'd left home in the middle
Speaker 1: of twenty fifteen when I went to Adelaide, you know,
Speaker 1: that was pack a suit case and within two days,
Speaker 1: you know, from when Phil Welsh passed away on the Friday,
Speaker 1: by Sunday evening, I was in Adelaide and there for
Speaker 1: three months, and then there was a short period where
Speaker 1: I came back here while I was flying to Melbourne
Speaker 1: for interviews with Essendon and then within a few weeks
Speaker 1: I was based in Melbourne. Yeah, it's you do realize
Speaker 1: what home means. And even then, for three years I
Speaker 1: tried to and this year everyone was away from home.
Speaker 1: It was really interesting dynamic for me listening to everyone
Speaker 1: saying we can't go to a hub for two months
Speaker 1: and I'm thinking, welcome, welcome to by last three years
Speaker 1: guys or two years. But even then the hub for
Speaker 1: me was different because I conditioned myself to just go
Speaker 1: into an empty apartment and just focusing on work. All
Speaker 1: of a sudden, I was around people from work, your
Speaker 1: workmates all day every day, so it was probably more
Speaker 1: of a challenge. They may have been lonely. I was
Speaker 1: like overwhelmed.
Speaker 3: Away from me. So yeah, again it's on.
Speaker 1: Reflection that he realized how much you are just sort
Speaker 1: of surviving.
Speaker 3: And that's that's what it's hard.
Speaker 1: Because my last year at Esenon was solely around preparing
Speaker 1: Ben Rutten to coach, giving him every opportunity to learn
Speaker 1: what he was going to be in for, learn about
Speaker 1: some systems he'll have in place to deal with the
Speaker 1: extra time, workload, the extra commitments he'll have when I
Speaker 1: when I signed with the Bombers and the family move back,
Speaker 1: really open discussion with Xavier Campbell around I don't know
Speaker 1: how long I can do this, so let's just recommit
Speaker 1: every August. If it changes for either of us, we'll
Speaker 1: just finish it. There'll we know obligation either way if
Speaker 1: it doesn't feel right, and we had a really open
Speaker 1: agreement with that, and so the last one was really
Speaker 1: I think I can go one more year, but it
Speaker 1: was more about to help Ben grow in his development
Speaker 1: to become a long term senior coach. But again it
Speaker 1: was really just a survival year. I've just got to
Speaker 1: do that really well and then when the season finishes,
Speaker 1: I'll be able to go home and be a family, husband,
Speaker 1: father again.
Speaker 2: You talk about the empty apartment the first night that
Speaker 2: they weren't there, did you have any sort of moment
Speaker 2: of shit, they've gone.
Speaker 1: Not really, because my whole footy career has been staying
Speaker 1: in hotel rooms for two or three nights going on
Speaker 1: footy camp, so it wasn't initially like any different. I'm
Speaker 1: used to being in a room on my own for
Speaker 1: various reasons. But really what we did spend time on
Speaker 1: was once the fixtures were released, usually mid October. Georgiana
Speaker 1: and I would map out the next twelve months in
Speaker 1: terms of possibilities of them either all of them coming
Speaker 1: to Melbourne or kids at different times, or when time
Speaker 1: would allow me to get back to Perth, either through
Speaker 1: fixtures or through a nightgame where I could get home
Speaker 1: just for the weekend. And tried to not have any
Speaker 1: periods longer than three maybe four weeks where we were
Speaker 1: stuck with no contact at all, So we would do that.
Speaker 1: Then I would just have that locked away in my calendar,
Speaker 1: and I always knew the next either trip for me
Speaker 1: or the next excuse me. The next time my family
Speaker 1: were going to be in Melbourne was only ever two
Speaker 1: or three weeks away. Once I started to think that's
Speaker 1: a bit lonely, it'd been nice to see them. So again,
Speaker 1: it was just putting in a system in place, and.
Speaker 2: No coaches putting in systems.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, this is going to work. This is how
Speaker 3: we're going to do it.
Speaker 1: We'd agreed to it, Georgia and I'd obviously discussed it.
Speaker 1: We discussed it a bit with the kids, and then
Speaker 1: try to make it work the best we possibly could.
Speaker 2: Have Your kids over the years ever had moments where they've,
Speaker 2: you know, said you've let me down, Dad, or you
Speaker 2: weren't there for this.
Speaker 3: They haven't.
Speaker 1: There may be moments where things were tough on them
Speaker 1: and I wasn't wasn't there with it. Certainly in the
Speaker 1: last couple of years there may have been those times.
Speaker 1: But hopefully I've always been available to them. When I
Speaker 1: am home, I'm around them. I don't play golf and
Speaker 1: I don't go fishing. My spare time is whatever they
Speaker 1: want to do. If they've got their junior sport or
Speaker 1: if they want to go down the beach. It says, yep,
Speaker 1: let's go, and I sort of commit to that. I
Speaker 1: don't have my own personal escape. That is them, and
Speaker 1: that gives me the most joy.
Speaker 2: I always marvel coaches and the amount of dedication that
Speaker 2: it takes, because you're kind of damned if you do
Speaker 2: your damned if you don't a little bit in delegation
Speaker 2: and things like that. It must be bloody testing for
Speaker 2: a marriage.
Speaker 1: I'm sure to hear you. Well, that's all I've ever known,
Speaker 1: so it's hard for me. I was Captain of West
Speaker 1: Coast when we got married nineteen ninety four. We just
Speaker 1: want a premiership end of September, got married in December.
Speaker 1: In October or early November, junele Up Shopping Center open,
Speaker 1: and I'd invested in a pharmacy in the new shopping
Speaker 1: center with two other guys, and so during our grand
Speaker 1: final celebrations, I was often in the Junior Lup shopping
Speaker 1: center pre opening while the carpet layers were putting carpet
Speaker 1: down in my pharmacy or stocking shelves. Hungover and having
Speaker 1: to catch a train home from Junior Lup because I
Speaker 1: may have had too much to drink that.
Speaker 3: Night before responsible, so I wouldn't drive up there.
Speaker 1: I would get a lift up there and then be
Speaker 1: forced to catch the train home as punishment. So it
Speaker 1: was a busy year premiership, pharmacy, new business opening, captain
Speaker 1: of the club, and we got married, so that everything's
Speaker 1: been a bree since then.
Speaker 2: Now, your coaching career has been inextricably linked with your
Speaker 2: family life as well. I was told a story that
Speaker 2: when you interviewed for the West Coast job, that you'd
Speaker 2: basically only had a couple of hours sleep the day before.
Speaker 2: Can you tell me a little bit about that twenty
Speaker 2: four hours of your life.
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, that my life seems to go like that.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and one, applied for both the Fremantle
Speaker 1: and the West Coast jobs. I was living in Melbourne,
Speaker 1: working with Carlton, and my son had just been born.
Speaker 1: He was born on the second of October. All this
Speaker 1: is happening over through October. So I was trying to
Speaker 1: help Georgina, either getting out of hospital, getting settled in
Speaker 1: Melbourne where we didn't have a lot of family, no family,
Speaker 1: flying to Perth for job interviews, trying to hope that
Speaker 1: they would align so I wouldn't have to come over
Speaker 1: and do West Coast and then go back and come
Speaker 1: back again.
Speaker 3: So it was pretty full on time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, trying to prepare for a job interviews for two clubs,
Speaker 1: what with a newborn at home. Well, Sophie, our eldest
Speaker 1: was four four and a half. Some of that say, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was pretty full on, but again you just survival mode,
Speaker 1: just do what you've got to do, try and do
Speaker 1: the best you can. But I was pretty run down
Speaker 1: and tied.
Speaker 3: I don't know that.
Speaker 1: I can't remember one of the interviews. I had the
Speaker 1: worst headache and felt as crooked. Was anything but trying
Speaker 1: not to let on and thinking I've got a plane
Speaker 1: to catch, so hopefully this doesn't go over time. I've
Speaker 1: got to get home. And it eased off a little bit.
Speaker 1: As you know, the job interviews were a bit more
Speaker 1: space to part. We got a bit more settled, but
Speaker 1: it was a tough time.
Speaker 2: Do you know how you went in the interview? I mean,
Speaker 2: obviously you got the West Coast gig. Yeah, did anyone
Speaker 2: ever give you any feedback of you were awful with
Speaker 2: that one?
Speaker 3: Yeah? No, I think the feedback was we'll get you
Speaker 3: back again.
Speaker 1: So the punishment was, yeah, you didn't seem like you
Speaker 1: were on top of your game, so maybe we'll talk
Speaker 1: to you again. It was either nice that some of
Speaker 1: the people in the interview either knew me well enough
Speaker 1: to say he didn't see himself and let's give him
Speaker 1: another opportunity. But yeah, either way, whether whether I got
Speaker 1: that job or not, you know, that was all just
Speaker 1: just I saw it as a great opportunity to throw
Speaker 1: myself out there.
Speaker 2: When I was looking through and searching for this interview,
Speaker 2: it struck me that you were only thirty three years
Speaker 2: old when you got that gig. You probably at the
Speaker 2: time didn't feel like that was young. But now when
Speaker 2: I say that back to you, do you go cheap
Speaker 2: as that's young to take on one of the biggest
Speaker 2: coaching jobs in the land at West Coast.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it does.
Speaker 1: I mean I'd been an assistant coach for a couple
Speaker 1: of years, so I'd retired as a player just before
Speaker 1: I turned thirty, had the one year where I did
Speaker 1: a bit of media and work in the pharmacy, and
Speaker 1: then two years at Carlton, So it wasn't as though
Speaker 1: I just retired.
Speaker 2: Thirty three is just young as I'm still young.
Speaker 1: Isn't it, Especially like young family and all that sort
Speaker 1: of thing. It is a tough thing. I mean, I
Speaker 1: look at Ben Rutten and his boys are a little
Speaker 1: bit older, maybe eight and ten something like that, and
Speaker 1: I think it's still You're going to miss a lot
Speaker 1: of time with him with your new role. I like
Speaker 1: the model of David Noble and Chris Fagan that their
Speaker 1: kids had grown up. Say in terms of of the
Speaker 1: time commitment to have to be available for your family,
Speaker 1: is it drops away a fair bit? But yeah, look,
Speaker 1: I was young. I hadn't ever really thought about going
Speaker 1: into coaching while I was playing, and it was only
Speaker 1: when I really retired, and I've missed just being at
Speaker 1: a football club so much in that first year out
Speaker 1: that I got the opportunity to be an assistant coach.
Speaker 1: I thought, that'll get me back in the game and
Speaker 1: we'll see how we go. So yeah, I didn't join
Speaker 1: Carlton with a view of becoming a senior coach. I
Speaker 1: joined Carlton with a view of being involved in football
Speaker 1: for as long as I possibly could.
Speaker 2: Well, by the time you were thirty eight, you're a
Speaker 2: premiership coach, so you went.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: The danger of starting your coaching career young as you
Speaker 1: finish young, you know, and unfortunately we've seen that a
Speaker 1: little bit.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: It's great to see Brett Ratton back in the game,
Speaker 1: and hopefully i'd love to see Michael Voss coaching again
Speaker 1: at some point because he'll be a bit there. They'll
Speaker 1: all be better coaches as they are in the game
Speaker 1: for longer. I've finished seventeen years, I think it is
Speaker 1: as a senior coach, and I'm younger than David Noble,
Speaker 1: who's just starting his career as a senior coach. I'd
Speaker 1: like to think with the wealth of experience I've had to.
Speaker 1: Whether I'm better prepared now than ever to lead a club,
Speaker 1: whether I have the passion to do that, who knows,
Speaker 1: And then whether the opportunity of arises You don't know.
Speaker 1: But yeah, just sometimes I think we put some super
Speaker 1: talented and smart, qualified young men into those roles in
Speaker 1: probably the most stressful period of their lives, and.
Speaker 3: It makes it tough.
Speaker 2: So would you go again?
Speaker 1: There's no reason why I wouldn't for all the reasons
Speaker 1: I've just spoke about. In two or three years time,
Speaker 1: my kids will be a lot more independent, living their
Speaker 1: own lives. They won't be suning Dad come to the beach,
Speaker 1: They'll be off with girlfriends and boyfriends. That side of
Speaker 1: my personal life will have me in a better space.
Speaker 1: You don't learn all the knowledge you have. So yeah,
Speaker 1: if the opportunity was there, I would no doubt I
Speaker 1: would consider it. Yeah, I think I can add a
Speaker 1: lot of value if the time and the opportunity was right.
Speaker 2: Like I said, you were so young, and upon reflection
Speaker 2: it turned out to be a really there's a lot
Speaker 2: of stuff going on at West Coast at the time.
Speaker 2: How do you reflect on that time from an off
Speaker 2: field point of view, and how you coped with it
Speaker 2: within yourself.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there were times, and it was it felt like
Speaker 1: there's no way whatever we do is not going to
Speaker 1: be right. Any move we make will be criticized and
Speaker 1: seen as the wrong move. I personally got criticized a
Speaker 1: couple of times for just that my only focus is
Speaker 1: on winning games, not on players' health, and that that
Speaker 1: hurt me. And again I didn't come out and defend
Speaker 1: myself because I knew it wasn't true, and I knew
Speaker 1: if people dug into it eventually a throwaway line wasn't
Speaker 1: going to rattle me. With everything I did. The time
Speaker 1: I spent trying to support players in their decision making
Speaker 1: and get their lives on track, let alone their footy
Speaker 1: careers was genuine and always above them being available to
Speaker 1: play footy.
Speaker 3: That was always if.
Speaker 1: You need time away from playing, you'll have our support.
Speaker 1: So those personal conversations were always happening. So it was
Speaker 1: dealing with a very very complex period people's personal lives
Speaker 1: that there was you know, there was no proof. It
Speaker 1: was all word of mouth rumor stuff. Can you hang
Speaker 1: someone because someone else rings a footy club which happens
Speaker 1: all the time, and says I saw this player with
Speaker 1: this person, and you think, okay, there's warning signs and
Speaker 1: there's concerns, but are they doing anything illegal or wrong?
Speaker 1: So it was it was a real balancing act between
Speaker 1: supporting them getting them to try and commit to what
Speaker 1: the whole team we're committing to. You know, there were
Speaker 1: some players that wouldn't buy into that, and they were
Speaker 1: challenged heavily that if you don't, we'll support you if
Speaker 1: you want to, but if you don't accept that you
Speaker 1: need to act this way, then you can't start at
Speaker 1: the football club. And that happened over a period of
Speaker 1: two or three years. Players were let go because they
Speaker 1: weren't going to buy into what we were trying to do.
Speaker 2: If you knew then what you know now, would you
Speaker 2: have done things differently.
Speaker 1: I've got no doubt that if you had information, you
Speaker 1: always act on the information you've got. So if there
Speaker 1: was more information happening, we would have made different decisions
Speaker 1: that they may not have been big public things that
Speaker 1: people would have seen, but it may have been a
Speaker 1: different course of action, whether it be setting a player
Speaker 1: to a counselor whatever it may have been. If you
Speaker 1: had different information. Definitely, I've got no doubt that drives
Speaker 1: your decision making. But we were pretty heavily in the
Speaker 1: dark with a lot of stuff that was going on
Speaker 1: that came out later, So it was hard to say
Speaker 1: that we should have acted differently when we were acting
Speaker 1: on information we had.
Speaker 2: How was it for you as a man, just yourself
Speaker 2: within yourself, going home each night and having an idea
Speaker 2: that people that you genuinely cared about I imagine were
Speaker 2: gone through some stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like I still if I could, I would
Speaker 1: catch up with Ben Cousins now to support him in
Speaker 1: any way I could with. Obviously a lot of people
Speaker 1: have tried to support him, and none of us have
Speaker 1: had any great success in terms of getting Ben to
Speaker 1: where we want him to be. That may mean that
Speaker 1: Ben's where he wants to be, and we should then
Speaker 1: accept that if that's where he wants to be, stop
Speaker 1: trying to force him to live the life we want
Speaker 1: him to live. But we all have the assumption that
Speaker 1: Ben's not happy living that life and he should change.
Speaker 1: But if Ben wanted to change, I would support him.
Speaker 1: You know, he's a great young man who is so young,
Speaker 1: still so much life ahead of him, young kids. Now,
Speaker 1: I still feel for the position he's in, Like I
Speaker 1: wouldn't want to be in that position, And I don't
Speaker 1: know if Ben wants to or doesn't want to be
Speaker 1: in that business.
Speaker 3: That's been the hard thing to try and ascertain.
Speaker 1: But all those boys, any of them that have been
Speaker 1: in any strife or struggled with transitioning away from the game,
Speaker 1: you feel for them and you want to support them
Speaker 1: because we were working so hard together, the West Coast
Speaker 1: Boys that I played with, the West Coast Boys that
Speaker 1: I coached, the Adelaide Boys. I was only there for
Speaker 1: a short period, but I love reading about the times
Speaker 1: are going well. I hate seeing Eddie Betts go through
Speaker 1: some of the dramas of racism, knowing how strong a
Speaker 1: family unit he is. That hurts me every time for
Speaker 1: that three months that I spent there and the Yestham Boys,
Speaker 1: and I went there because I saw too many times
Speaker 1: through twenty fourteen and fifteen a group of footballers led
Speaker 1: by Joe Watson fronting a press conference looking like what
Speaker 1: is this game done to me? Like I'm flat sad,
Speaker 1: and I'm thinking I haven't had a sad moment really,
Speaker 1: I Mean, we've had challenging moments, but I've loved my
Speaker 1: footy life and those guys should love it and they
Speaker 1: don't love it. And that's what sort of drove me
Speaker 1: to go to Essen and think if I can help
Speaker 1: those boys get back to saying AFL footy is awesome,
Speaker 1: that was going to be a win for me.
Speaker 2: You deeply care, don't you?
Speaker 3: I do?
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely I do. I care for that more than
Speaker 1: winning games too much. We think winning games and winning
Speaker 1: the premierships make ring us happiness. Twenty ten at West
Speaker 1: Coast we won the Wooden Spoon. I'm pretty sure it's
Speaker 1: the club's only ever wooden spoon. But what we achieved
Speaker 1: that year people have no idea of how strong that club,
Speaker 1: but what it learnt in that year from the hurt
Speaker 1: of our pride and an ego to say we could
Speaker 1: finish last, but to stick to a plan, to say
Speaker 1: we're committed to where this group's going to go and
Speaker 1: win another flag.
Speaker 3: As quickly as possible.
Speaker 1: It was huge, how tight everyone had to work essenon
Speaker 1: in two thousand and sixteen when the suspension has happened,
Speaker 1: to have players finishing that year saying that's one of
Speaker 1: the most enjoyable years of footy I've had is a
Speaker 1: massive thing. Otherwise they would have left the club. Too
Speaker 1: many players would have left, and I don't think any
Speaker 1: players left at the end of twenty sixteen.
Speaker 2: And you took over that job not knowing about those
Speaker 2: suspensions that hadn't happened years. So you thought you were
Speaker 2: going to have all those or potentially have all of
Speaker 2: those players available. Yeah, and your first gig is really
Speaker 2: I mean, nobody thought you were going to win a
Speaker 2: game that year.
Speaker 1: No, No, And that's always a likelihood when you have
Speaker 1: twelve twelve senior players unavailable every week. Taking the job
Speaker 1: at essence was like you coming in no association. It's
Speaker 1: going to be a fresh start, all clear air going forward.
Speaker 1: And we had six weeks of clear air before the
Speaker 1: appeal was upheld and the suspensions happened, and yeah, we
Speaker 1: had to start again, refocus.
Speaker 3: How are we going to get through this? What are
Speaker 3: we going to do?
Speaker 1: And the idea for me was we can still grow
Speaker 1: and improve by working, committing to each other, raising our standards.
Speaker 1: Even if we don't win a game. We can learn
Speaker 1: and grow this year and have fun doing it. And
Speaker 1: that was pretty much became what the you was all about.
Speaker 2: Do you remember how you felt when that suspension, that
Speaker 2: decision came down.
Speaker 1: I hadn't spent really any time understanding what the appeal
Speaker 1: was over.
Speaker 3: Obviously hadn't been aware of how much time.
Speaker 1: And effort lawyers were putting into some of the scene
Speaker 1: you people at the footy club were having to put
Speaker 1: into it. I just started, had mapped out the preseason
Speaker 1: program and we'd built that and was ready to go
Speaker 1: in January. So when the suspensions happened, it was like, right, A,
Speaker 1: that's we know what we've got to do. We know
Speaker 1: where we stand now. First thing, support the guys that
Speaker 1: have been suspended. Second thing, how do we top up
Speaker 1: our list?
Speaker 2: Do you have even a moment though, before you go
Speaker 2: into coach I mean this is a genuine question. Do
Speaker 2: you go straight into coach mode or do you even
Speaker 2: have a moment that you go, well, bugger. I feel
Speaker 2: really sorry for those blokes. Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Do you have a human reaction before you have the
Speaker 2: coach reaction?
Speaker 1: Absolutely, you have the human reaction in terms of looking
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to remember. I don't know if Xavier
Speaker 1: Campbell came in and told us all at the club,
Speaker 1: because I'm pretty sure he was with the players.
Speaker 3: They were at a hotel in the city.
Speaker 1: I think it could have been Justin Rodski something like that,
Speaker 1: who who came in and broke the news, and it
Speaker 1: was Yeah, honestly, it was just about the biggest shock
Speaker 1: you could have, other than maybe someone close in the
Speaker 1: club passing away. It was just everyone was shell shocked,
Speaker 1: but no one expected it. No one certainly didn't expect
Speaker 1: the twelve month ban. Yeah, for me, it was what
Speaker 1: does it mean for me? It doesn't affect me personally
Speaker 1: in terms of I'm not involved. I wasn't involved in that.
Speaker 1: All it means for me is I don't have players available,
Speaker 1: So that's the coach stuff. For me, it was these
Speaker 1: people have been living this. I just try and support them.
Speaker 1: It was very similar to the time when I went
Speaker 1: to Adelaide. It's like I'm coming I was friends with
Speaker 1: Phil Walsh, but I'm coming from outside looking at these
Speaker 1: people who were talking to him the day before.
Speaker 3: And now he's not there.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that essen and stuff was just don't judge
Speaker 1: any reaction from anyone. Some players wanted to get out
Speaker 1: of there straight away. Some needed to be around each other,
Speaker 1: so it was just letting them know there is going
Speaker 1: to be support for you in these roles. Do what
Speaker 1: he's right for you. Don't feel any obligation above getting
Speaker 1: yourself like in a good positive mind as positive mind
Speaker 1: frame as you can be.
Speaker 2: You're listening to Ordinarily, speaking with John wasfold. October two
Speaker 2: thousand and seven must have been one of the most
Speaker 2: challenging months of your life. I'd imagine many who Chris
Speaker 2: main Wearing who I worked with it Channel seven at
Speaker 2: the time, so he's a made of mine at the
Speaker 2: time as well. Incredibly tough time for everyone to go through.
Speaker 2: You'd spent twenty years with him. Do you remember that day?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I certainly remember the phone call and yeah, being
Speaker 1: in total shock, and my reaction initially was what can
Speaker 1: I do to help anyone? So we put a call
Speaker 1: out to all the past players that had played with
Speaker 1: many at West Coast and just say invite them here,
Speaker 1: if you want to come around, come around, And we
Speaker 1: just had a few beers through the afternoon together.
Speaker 3: Just come around if you want to come around.
Speaker 1: Because I was my guest was all feeling like I
Speaker 1: was just like, what, I don't know what to do.
Speaker 1: I'm just going to sit here and sort of mourn,
Speaker 1: and I don't know, it felt empty, say come around,
Speaker 1: at least we can do it all together. So we
Speaker 1: spent the afternoon doing that.
Speaker 3: But it's just tough. Yeah, there's no.
Speaker 1: Other words to describe. But Phil Wels's phone call so similar.
Speaker 1: I'd only work with Walshi for four or five years,
Speaker 1: but you know, I've been doing some stuff with him
Speaker 1: at Adelaide and helping him a little bit with that.
Speaker 1: So to hear the tragic events there.
Speaker 3: It's just.
Speaker 1: Rocksh you so much. But you know, for me, it's
Speaker 1: always been about Okay, there's stuff we've got to do.
Speaker 1: Let's just get moving on that. We can't just stop everything.
Speaker 1: And you can steal morn and grieve while you're working
Speaker 1: and going forward, and the footy industry tends to force
Speaker 1: you to do that a little bit.
Speaker 2: How do you grieve if for all the time you're
Speaker 2: just getting.
Speaker 3: On with it.
Speaker 1: Maybe get out and run for twenty k's and Tom
Speaker 1: physically and mentally exhausted, and then I know I'll sleep well.
Speaker 1: And while I run, I can think and just let
Speaker 1: random thoughts come and go. So that's probably it for
Speaker 1: me because I, yeah, I don't just talk to people.
Speaker 1: For me, it would be internal. Yeah, so that's generally
Speaker 1: what I've done.
Speaker 2: I mean, maybe he was such a larger than life
Speaker 2: like he was. He was brilliant to work with and
Speaker 2: he was so generous with his time. As may I
Speaker 2: was a twenty one year old just coming up through
Speaker 2: the ranks and a female in the sporting world, and
Speaker 2: he was so supportive and so lovely. What do you
Speaker 2: remember him as?
Speaker 1: Just NonStop, you know, so much energy, so bubbly, but
Speaker 1: on the footy field quiet, just hardly said a word,
Speaker 1: just worked his backside off, and I'm sure it was
Speaker 1: because he was exhausted, he ran so hard. We were
Speaker 1: so different as personalities, but we were really close.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so mainy.
Speaker 1: I know, he looked up to me as his captain,
Speaker 1: and he also looked up to me as which is
Speaker 1: a pretty straight guy, you know, and he respected that.
Speaker 1: So he never put he never went we should come
Speaker 1: out with.
Speaker 3: Us or whatever. He went, that's that's you, that's fine.
Speaker 1: And there were times in his press conference, probably in
Speaker 1: his early ones, where he was in the press pack
Speaker 1: and he would see me afterwards.
Speaker 3: Go sorry, sorry, I asked that question, Maye, do your
Speaker 3: job mate?
Speaker 1: Just I see you as you just set They're doing
Speaker 1: your job. I'm not looking and going, why is Maney
Speaker 1: picking on me?
Speaker 3: All?
Speaker 1: But he was apologetic, and I hated the fact that
Speaker 1: he felt like that. I was trying to say to him,
Speaker 1: It's exactly what I was saying you before. My relationship
Speaker 1: was media coach, and I can put that aside and
Speaker 1: see many an hour later as an ex teammate mate. Yeah, so, yeah,
Speaker 1: Many was. I had a good relationship with him on
Speaker 1: the field because so many times he was on the wing.
Speaker 1: I was half back, so on the same side of
Speaker 1: the ground, just talking to him NonStop and asking him
Speaker 1: to dig deep and run harder, and he would just
Speaker 1: always look around like he'd look at me exhausted and
Speaker 1: just nod, yeah, no, I wish keep running. But that
Speaker 1: was our sort of relationship, and maybe he didn't.
Speaker 3: He was so quiet.
Speaker 1: Look, if someone picked on him, he would just say,
Speaker 1: I'll just get up and keep going, and I would
Speaker 1: go and try and stand up for him. And I
Speaker 1: know he appreciated that as well, because his personality wasn't
Speaker 1: a fight.
Speaker 3: It was just to play footy and have fun.
Speaker 2: Losing someone like that, I imagine, and given he's got kids.
Speaker 2: It has an impact on your whole family because, as
Speaker 2: you said, you played your coach at the same club.
Speaker 2: I mean Georgina would have been so invested in a
Speaker 2: person like him as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely, Like with Rannie and Zach and Maddie, we
Speaker 3: all follow what they're up to. We try to keep
Speaker 3: in touch.
Speaker 1: On the tenth anniversary of Mayne's passing, a lot of
Speaker 1: those pass players we met at Subi Oval. That coincided
Speaker 1: with Subi going to be finished as a playing venue.
Speaker 1: We were having a Premiership reunion, so we got Rannie
Speaker 1: to come along.
Speaker 3: We started it.
Speaker 1: We met sub at ten thirty in the morning. It
Speaker 1: was going to be a long day. Craig Turley had
Speaker 1: organized Maney's favorite shots, so we had to have a
Speaker 1: shot for Maney at ten thirty am on sub Oval
Speaker 1: with Rannie in a big circle.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was so special.
Speaker 1: It was so We've got a group photo of all
Speaker 1: of us but Rannie standing in for Maney. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: was a nice moment because it was where we stood
Speaker 1: on the ground, was right in front of the Chris
Speaker 1: Main wearing wing So it just had so much meaning
Speaker 1: to us all because there was never another game of
Speaker 1: foot he played there and the Chris Main wearing wing
Speaker 1: wasn't going to exist anymore. So that was a great memory.
Speaker 1: When we catch up every time we basically reflect on
Speaker 1: Maney not being there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's life. Throws some tough ones at you all
Speaker 3: the while.
Speaker 2: When that was going on, you had the Bend Cousins
Speaker 2: situation going on. I've been told that you were on
Speaker 2: a family holiday when you had to make that call
Speaker 2: to him. Tell me what that was like.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was obviously tough.
Speaker 1: Ben was still denying or in denial that there was
Speaker 1: any major issue that he couldn't keep going. You know,
Speaker 1: he was angry when we took the captaincy off him
Speaker 1: at the end of two.
Speaker 3: Thousand and five.
Speaker 1: Because he felt he was still the hardest worker, the
Speaker 1: leader for the boys, the way trained and and he
Speaker 1: just was struggling to see that his other actions were
Speaker 1: detrimental to what we were trying to do. So then
Speaker 1: to say to him, no, that's all done. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was tough. I mean, his dad rang me while I
Speaker 1: was away and was quite upset about it, which again
Speaker 1: that did rock me a little bit. I felt like
Speaker 1: I couldn't have I don't think I could have done
Speaker 1: any more personally to help. So it hurt me a
Speaker 1: bit because that was a big club decision.
Speaker 3: Wasn't just my decision.
Speaker 1: But I also understood that, you know, my perspective of
Speaker 1: it as coach compared to a father of Ben is
Speaker 1: way different how Brian was going to perceive what that
Speaker 1: meant for him and Ben. And so you know, I
Speaker 1: wasn't hurt by it, but it rocked me a bit.
Speaker 1: It was like, emotionally, really, I really thought you would
Speaker 1: have seen the personal help I was trying to trying
Speaker 1: to give you all the way that the support I
Speaker 1: gave Brian and Ben. But yeah, that's it's tough in
Speaker 1: those situations.
Speaker 2: Did he feel like you'd abandoned his son? Yeah?
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, you'd have to ask on but I'm sure
Speaker 1: there was some feeling of that. It's like, you know,
Speaker 1: if Ben doesn't end up at another club, hasn't got
Speaker 1: afl footye, is there anything that's going to hold him back?
Speaker 1: This might be the worst possible thing for Ben. He's yeah,
Speaker 1: he's going to have no reason to get.
Speaker 3: Sober or whatever whatever it meant.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but yeah, for Ben's family, it must
Speaker 1: have been so tough, not just that moment, but so
Speaker 1: many moments prior to that.
Speaker 2: How does once again that impact on you as a
Speaker 2: human because you make the tough calls, but that doesn't
Speaker 2: mean that you stop caring. How hard was that for
Speaker 2: you to let go of human make that call?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is hard.
Speaker 1: I was at the club when Ben came as a
Speaker 1: young boy, and I was captain.
Speaker 3: I think the year been arrived.
Speaker 1: I had a knee reconstruction, so I wasn't playing, so
Speaker 1: I could be around there a bit. Yes, so you
Speaker 1: become big brothers to them, there's no doubt about that,
Speaker 1: try and support them, and admired him so much for
Speaker 1: how hard he worked and how good a footballer he was.
Speaker 1: But really, whether that's Ben or whether it's a player
Speaker 1: who's been at the club for two years and you're
Speaker 1: making a decision that they're probably not up to it,
Speaker 1: and you're delisting a twenty year old and seeing their
Speaker 1: face come to the realization that my dream is not
Speaker 1: going to come true, that's just as hard. You're emotionally
Speaker 1: invested to all of them. You draft them, you see
Speaker 1: how excited they are, you speak to them, you meet
Speaker 1: their parents. They're all that excited and from that moment
Speaker 1: you want to help them become great AFL footballers. It's tough.
Speaker 1: So whether it's a Ben Cousins who's a star and
Speaker 1: you spend a long time with them, they.
Speaker 3: All take a lot out of it. You walk away
Speaker 3: feeling pretty broken.
Speaker 2: Was there any one phone call that you got through
Speaker 2: that West Coast time of the stuff that was going
Speaker 2: on that you'd late at night and you've gotten a
Speaker 2: phone call and you've gone not again, or you know, there.
Speaker 3: Were a few.
Speaker 1: I mean there was that period where my phone was
Speaker 1: on not on silent every night and it was just yeah,
Speaker 1: is it going to ring? And it may have only
Speaker 1: happened I don't know. Maybe it happened half a dozen
Speaker 1: times in three years. It's not a lot, but certainly
Speaker 1: in the off season it would have been I hope
Speaker 1: we're not going to get any.
Speaker 3: Bad phone calls.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was a tough period to be coaching, knowing
Speaker 1: that there was that stuff lingering that could arise at
Speaker 1: any time and you didn't know what it was going
Speaker 1: to be or what it was going to entail. I
Speaker 1: mean that there was a nightclub shooting at Metro Nightclub.
Speaker 1: I think you hear about that, and you think, well,
Speaker 1: we won't have anyone involved in that. Then you hear
Speaker 1: that there wasn't anyone involved, but there was. I can't
Speaker 1: even remember what the story was, but either Ben or
Speaker 1: Michael Gardner had had a phone call to someone who
Speaker 1: was a person of interest in that really close to
Speaker 1: that time, and then you go like, what is going
Speaker 1: on there? You never really hear and find out the
Speaker 1: full details unless you wanted to go and sit and
Speaker 1: listen to the whole court case that they weren't involved in,
Speaker 1: but their names may have been mentioned in. You just
Speaker 1: sit there in the dark to some of degree.
Speaker 3: Jeez.
Speaker 2: It was a bizarre time really when you turn stories
Speaker 2: like that, isn't it.
Speaker 1: Yeah? Obviously the Ben swimming across the river stuff, you know,
Speaker 1: you just go on, Okay, that's not just a drink
Speaker 1: driving incident. That's a drink potential drink driving where he's
Speaker 1: evaded the police and then probably put his life at
Speaker 1: risk trying to swim across the Swan River at a
Speaker 1: pretty wide point. Thank god, at all, he was okay,
Speaker 1: he got himself out of the river. But yeah, you
Speaker 1: just think I'm just here, I'm probably in bed by
Speaker 1: nine thirty that night, and then those things are happening
Speaker 1: and you just think I'm living in a different world.
Speaker 3: To some people, that's not what you signed up for.
Speaker 1: No, well, you sign up to be in a high
Speaker 1: performance environment and it's high stress. You got massive personalities,
Speaker 1: So yeah, there's risk. There's always going to be risk.
Speaker 1: You know, you read about well any sport with it.
Speaker 1: I always used to think you should we take any
Speaker 1: solid in the fact that it's a rugby league player
Speaker 1: who's in strife this time. Sure enough, within a week
Speaker 1: there'll be an AFL player somewhere in strife for something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they all go in. It's a risky environment for a
Speaker 1: lot of reasons, for the mental anguish and stress, the
Speaker 1: high physical toll it takes. As a coach, you've got
Speaker 1: to understand there's going to be some massive challenges there.
Speaker 2: You talk about the off season. I think the first
Speaker 2: ever doorstop I had to do is a journal was
Speaker 2: Chad Fletcher when he arrived back from from Vegas. I
Speaker 2: mean that must have been one of those phone calls
Speaker 2: that you're sitting there on what is going on?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Absolutely, and again just thank god he was all right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, the young Port Adelaide boy that Yeah, John
Speaker 1: had the accident. Yeah, didn't come home. So yeah, that
Speaker 1: stuff around Chad At the time, it was like, look,
Speaker 1: how serious is this is, because you know, things can
Speaker 1: get blown up. If you wanted to be a story,
Speaker 1: you can say he was seconds away from there for
Speaker 1: or whatever. We're trying to say someone from let us
Speaker 1: know exactly what happened. But there was quite a few
Speaker 1: people involved. But yeah, it was very scary for the
Speaker 1: people that were over there. They were extremely concerned for
Speaker 1: Chad's health. But it worked out all right. You know,
Speaker 1: he was okay, and he's living a life in Bali
Speaker 1: and surfing doing what he loves and he seems like
Speaker 1: he's found his feet what He's in a place where
Speaker 1: he's really happy.
Speaker 3: And I love seeing that.
Speaker 2: I heard that when you're at the Bombers, you stood
Speaker 2: up in front of the group after a few years
Speaker 2: at a bowling Alliot Crown casino and shared your own
Speaker 2: vulnerabilities in a hope that it would encourage others to
Speaker 2: and make the group closer. Do you remember that moment
Speaker 2: and what drove you to do that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, look, that was something we'd committed to. It was
Speaker 1: called a circle of trust, which I had implemented, and
Speaker 1: I wasn't the first one to do it. So it
Speaker 1: was just at some point people were invited to share
Speaker 1: their story, so we felt like I should partake in
Speaker 1: that since I think it's a really important part. There
Speaker 1: were some wonderful stories and sharings that took place through
Speaker 1: all that period where we got to know each other
Speaker 1: on a lot better level, talking about your family and
Speaker 1: your upbringing.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I did that. I opened up more than
Speaker 3: I ever had, but I was still very guarded. You know.
Speaker 1: I didn't really share exactly my vulnerabilities, a story about
Speaker 1: my upbringing and my family and how close I was
Speaker 1: and all that.
Speaker 3: It was really just a story.
Speaker 1: Some of the stuff that that was a bit deeper
Speaker 1: I didn't share with them, which on one hand, I
Speaker 1: think I should have, but then I also feel like
Speaker 1: that's something that I don't do, and yeah, I wasn't.
Speaker 3: Ready to do that.
Speaker 1: So it was about your dad, It was about it
Speaker 1: a lot of things. Yeah, but my family have.
Speaker 3: Just shaped obviously.
Speaker 1: They so much an important part of your life growing up.
Speaker 1: Mom and Dad worked unbelievably hard to just for their kids,
Speaker 1: you know, they pretty much everything they did was to
Speaker 1: make sure we had what we needed. From trying to
Speaker 1: make sure we had good sporting equipment to my dad
Speaker 1: taken my sister. My sister was a really good athlete,
Speaker 1: so Dad had to take time off work so many
Speaker 1: times to be able to get her to her training sessions.
Speaker 1: She was never going to miss a training session because
Speaker 1: we couldn't do that. He was going to find a way.
Speaker 1: He worked two jobs, Mum worked two jobs just so
Speaker 1: that we could do what we wanted.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: We never went on overseas holidays or anything like that.
Speaker 1: It was down to Dunsborough for a week, but that's
Speaker 1: all we needed. It was more about get to the school.
Speaker 1: Get to a good.
Speaker 3: School, mind you. I went to South Front of High.
Speaker 1: School, which was a good school, but it wasn't up
Speaker 1: at the eye owner level that my sister went to.
Speaker 2: But it wasn't college senior high school.
Speaker 3: Which is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're good schools. They're good school anyway. Yeah, my
Speaker 1: family were great role models. Obviously, Mom and Dad were awesome.
Speaker 1: And Mum's got a great story in her own right.
Speaker 1: She left her family in England when she was eighteen
Speaker 1: to come to Australia, where she knew one. She had
Speaker 1: one auntie living here in Perth. My mum's mom had
Speaker 1: passed away when she was about fifteen and things didn't
Speaker 1: go well after that with a step mom, new stepmom
Speaker 1: that came into their So mum just at eighteen just
Speaker 1: walked out, didn't say goodbye. She had a little sister
Speaker 1: left and didn't talk to her dad or a sister
Speaker 1: again for twenty years. Came to Australia and set up
Speaker 1: a life here. So tough lady. They taught us so much.
Speaker 2: Your dad passed a couple of years ago.
Speaker 3: Yeah, how did that impact you? Yeah, that was I
Speaker 3: don't know.
Speaker 1: He'd had Alzheimer's, so we'd seen him deteriorat and that
Speaker 1: was sad to see such a respect self respecting gentlemen.
Speaker 1: He wanted everything that always had to be right to
Speaker 1: be starting to struggle with that, and you could see
Speaker 1: in the early days of frustration he had. In a way,
Speaker 1: it was fairly wrap it on set. So from him
Speaker 1: going really really sort of bad to passing away was
Speaker 1: a fairly short time frame. So I think it was
Speaker 1: horrible to lose him, but you know, it wasn't. It
Speaker 1: wasn't our dad. Towards the end there, so I would
Speaker 1: have hated to see him sort of just sit around
Speaker 1: for another couple of years not being himself.
Speaker 3: So yeah, it was tough.
Speaker 2: But it's tough to watch somebody you love it and
Speaker 2: I guess, is your role model go through something like our.
Speaker 3: Side it is and then they're just not there.
Speaker 1: So even when they're ill, you can still go and
Speaker 1: see them, touch them, and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: they're not there. So that's that's that empty feeling. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it's the way I feel as though everything that I
Speaker 1: learned from my dad is still with me. You know,
Speaker 1: I say, I don't even feel like I'm missing him
Speaker 1: because it impacts me so much every day. Yeah, Mom
Speaker 1: misses him because obviously she was there with him every
Speaker 1: day for fifty years, so I know how tough it
Speaker 1: is for Mom for the physical presence. But yeah, for me, yeah,
Speaker 1: I sort of have great memories and that sense that
Speaker 1: everything that that's happened to me is being sort of
Speaker 1: guided by Mom and Dad.
Speaker 2: Have you ever struggled with your mental health? He's saying,
Speaker 2: bloody resilient.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm not going to tell you that I'm that's
Speaker 1: I've got no doubt I've had moments, but I've and
Speaker 1: I don't know really what self sort of self serving
Speaker 1: mechanism I have, but I've managed to find a way
Speaker 1: to just keep work, keep going.
Speaker 2: You say, do you ever worry that it will catch
Speaker 2: up to you.
Speaker 1: I've probably had a couple of moments in the last
Speaker 1: five or ten years that that it's caught up with me,
Speaker 1: and it's knocked me where physically I've just haven't been able.
Speaker 3: Get out of bed. I've had a day where I've.
Speaker 1: Slept and struggled, and then the next day I'm up
Speaker 1: and up and about. That would be the only times
Speaker 1: that I think I would have thought this doesn't feel right.
Speaker 1: You know that that would And again, it would only
Speaker 1: be two or three times where I've been soldiering on
Speaker 1: and then just hit a wall and just needed to
Speaker 1: sort of shut myself away and sleep. And it might
Speaker 1: have slept for eighteen hours in a day or something
Speaker 1: like that, and you know, you think, I've slept all day,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to sleep tonight, And then you sleep
Speaker 1: well that night and you wake up the next day
Speaker 1: and ready to go. So I think I don't think
Speaker 1: I've too much up that at one point it's going
Speaker 1: to really nail me. I think I've been able to
Speaker 1: put everything into perspective and understand that. Yeah, I've had
Speaker 1: a blessed life. I've had way less tragedy than so
Speaker 1: many people in other lives. Doesn't make each individual event
Speaker 1: any easier, But I've been very lucky. You mean, my
Speaker 1: dad was healthy up until he was seventy eight or
Speaker 1: seventy nine years of age. I don't think you'd ever
Speaker 1: really been ill. Yeah, I've been lucky. You have wonderful parents,
Speaker 1: great family, brothers, sister, good career. Yeah, it's been pretty
Speaker 1: nice to reflect on.
Speaker 3: But yeah, a good sleep, A good sleep will get
Speaker 3: me through.
Speaker 2: My mum always says, if you slept that long, you
Speaker 2: probably needed it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Those couple of times that it did happen, were they
Speaker 2: moments where you were exhausted or do you they just
Speaker 2: came out of the blue. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think they were probably a culmination of of intense
Speaker 1: periods and then neither something happened that just like I
Speaker 1: need to get away or I'm going to say or
Speaker 1: do something silly here, get myself out of that environment
Speaker 1: and work through it.
Speaker 3: So I think it wasn't just a one event that
Speaker 3: I went, I'm going to go and now sleep it off.
Speaker 1: It was like, this has been a tough period of
Speaker 1: maybe six months and then an event that you just think, right,
Speaker 1: buy your tongue, go and get yourself, get clear, and
Speaker 1: then reassess it you.
Speaker 2: Ever snapped and gone. I wish I didn't do that.
Speaker 1: I don't think so when I retired or resigned from
Speaker 1: coaching West Coast, I don't think Georgiana, even though I
Speaker 1: knew I was going to do that, I.
Speaker 3: Was about to.
Speaker 1: I think I was about to either re sign another extension,
Speaker 1: but it just came to realization that that wasn't the
Speaker 1: right thing to do. So I went and saw Trevni
Speaker 1: Isbert and just blurted it out.
Speaker 3: That's it, right, yep.
Speaker 1: And then I think I rang Georgia or I came
Speaker 1: home and told her I just resigned. And it was
Speaker 1: one of those things that I didn't talk to people,
Speaker 1: no I knew. It was just me thinking what do
Speaker 1: you need? What do you need to have to commit
Speaker 1: to keep doing this job? And the number one thing
Speaker 1: is the passionate energy. And there were things that were
Speaker 1: challenging my love of the game where I was and
Speaker 1: there were things that had happened every year that I'd
Speaker 1: coach you through, all the different dramas. These things were
Speaker 1: now making me think that's really annoying. Or it might
Speaker 1: have been a coach leaving you go to another club
Speaker 1: or something like that, and I think that's now let
Speaker 1: me down.
Speaker 3: Ris.
Speaker 1: In the past it was like, good on your great
Speaker 1: career move, go for it. This time was now I
Speaker 1: have to replace you. I thought, if that's how I'm feeling,
Speaker 1: I haven't got the energy. I'm not seeing this right.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it just came to me. Next morning, I
Speaker 1: went in told Nizzy, Yeah, that was it. So that's
Speaker 1: probably the time where and so that's not your question,
Speaker 1: was how I have a snap and don't think No,
Speaker 1: that was just a sudden decision where I didn't say
Speaker 1: I was going to go and sneaking in my cave
Speaker 1: for twenty four hours to sleep this one off and
Speaker 1: maybe I'll be right tomorrow. I think I might have
Speaker 1: tried that, done that and couldn't shake this one off.
Speaker 2: Needed forty eight to seventy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, but you know, from the moment I'd told News,
Speaker 1: it felt like that was the right thing to do
Speaker 1: for the playing group in particular, they needed a coach
Speaker 1: that was one hundred percent ready to go, especially with
Speaker 1: the hard work we put in from two thousand and seven, eight, nine,
Speaker 1: ten to get them into a position where are ready
Speaker 1: to launch. You know, we played in the Premium in
Speaker 1: twenty eleven. I think we finished fifth and twelve. It
Speaker 1: was like, you got it's all there now. I don't
Speaker 1: want to be the one that messes it up because
Speaker 1: I'm tired. So get a young, fresh per new coaching
Speaker 1: and have a crack.
Speaker 2: Couple of fun ones on just how bloody tough you
Speaker 2: are that I I've heard, Yeah, is it true that
Speaker 2: you used to or that you still did actually test
Speaker 2: players one on one as fitness tests if they were
Speaker 2: under a bit of an injury cloud, and you would say, right,
Speaker 2: one on one me and you let's go, which put
Speaker 2: them in the position of either they beat you and
Speaker 2: potentially hurt you, which would be bad hurting the coach,
Speaker 2: or they lose to you, which is worse.
Speaker 1: If people were looking around and saying, we really need
Speaker 1: this guy to test his shoulder out with a bump
Speaker 1: or something like that, and say right, they all come on,
Speaker 1: run at me, because you could see others were.
Speaker 3: Going, no, I don't want to. I don't want that
Speaker 3: guy running into me. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I felt like I could still cope with that at times.
Speaker 1: My first year at CARLT, when I was thirty and
Speaker 1: Craig Bradley was thirty seven or something like that, thirty eight,
Speaker 1: still playing it. He'd hurt his shoulder and who's out
Speaker 1: injured and he was coming back and he said to
Speaker 1: me after training, I just want to test my shoulder
Speaker 1: out wusher And I thought, better take it easy on
Speaker 1: the old boy. It's only little Craig Bradley. And he
Speaker 1: came in and he either I can't remember, don't argue
Speaker 1: or something and nearly cave my chest in and I thought, wrong,
Speaker 1: right now it's on. I'm going to test your shoulder.
Speaker 1: Not as drastic as it sounds, but I didn't mind
Speaker 1: putting myself out there.
Speaker 2: That one came from nicknat He said that.
Speaker 3: I hope it wasn't trying to do a fitnessess on him.
Speaker 1: Maybe when he was when he just joined the club,
Speaker 1: he was about twenty five kilos lighter.
Speaker 2: He also says that you guys shared bunk beds in
Speaker 2: a Cambodia trip, that you would organize, smile on your face.
Speaker 2: And he was so scared of the giant rats. But
Speaker 2: he couldn't tell you because he was a teenager and
Speaker 2: the coach should think he was weak as piercing him
Speaker 2: out scared he.
Speaker 3: Was on a pig farm.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we were at an orphanage that had a pig
Speaker 1: farm out the back. And oh yeah, that was bringing
Speaker 1: you back to earth for sure.
Speaker 3: Good fun. All of us in the same little dormitory.
Speaker 2: And the other one was coaching at Essendon. That one
Speaker 2: day you got shoulder surgery on your day off and
Speaker 2: you fronted up the next day with no sling, didn't
Speaker 2: tell anyone and everyone only found out months later or
Speaker 2: something like that that you actually had had a shoulder surgery?
Speaker 2: Is that true?
Speaker 3: Who found that out? I didn't think anyone that ever
Speaker 3: found that out?
Speaker 2: This is how good my sources.
Speaker 3: I yeah, we had.
Speaker 1: I can't maybe it was our mid season by or
Speaker 1: something like that. So we had a couple of days off.
Speaker 1: I booked my shoulder surgery and then yeah, the surgeon said,
Speaker 1: just where the sling, make sure you don't get it knocked.
Speaker 1: So my issue was, you know the sling? I can
Speaker 1: I can carry my arm without it, and I don't reckon,
Speaker 1: anyone will notice as long as they don't kick a
Speaker 1: footy up at me, and as long as no player
Speaker 1: then wants to do a fitness test on me.
Speaker 3: Anyway, I got through.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was It was an interesting time and I
Speaker 1: sort of talk it as a little bit of a challenge.
Speaker 1: I'll see if I can get through this with no
Speaker 1: one knowing, only that only the doc knew and he
Speaker 1: had that confidentiality agreement he wasn't allowed to tell anyone. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we got through only once I reckon, someone came past
Speaker 1: and just clipped me, and I just got it out
Speaker 1: of the way in time.
Speaker 2: But because they said that it shows how tough you were.
Speaker 2: But also they were like, we wish that he could
Speaker 2: have felt like he could have shared that and been
Speaker 2: vulnerable about it.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Fun in that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I do remember going home because Georgia and the
Speaker 1: kids were still in Melbourne at the time, and I'd
Speaker 1: be at home eating dinner like this arm and I
Speaker 1: couldn't sleep, and then I'd get up and leave the
Speaker 1: sling and go to work work work with AFL football
Speaker 1: is there. I was like, I'm going to see if
Speaker 1: I can do this. But it was also it's also
Speaker 1: a test of keeping your mouth shut. See if Georgina,
Speaker 1: don't tell anyone, Doc, don't tell anyone.
Speaker 3: Yeah I am, I am.
Speaker 1: Anyway, there was a couple of little stories like that
Speaker 1: at the Bombers where try to keep things quiet. I
Speaker 1: don't know if you remember when I had the big
Speaker 1: black eye when I was coaching. I think that was
Speaker 1: in twenty eighteen maybe. Anyway, I turned up to work
Speaker 1: with the biggest black eye and just everyone know what happened,
Speaker 1: and no one found out, no one found out who
Speaker 1: did it, how it happened.
Speaker 3: I had to tell Zavier Campbell. I didn't tell him
Speaker 3: how it happened.
Speaker 1: I just said, there's nothing untoward. This is not me
Speaker 1: at a pub drunk getting hit or whatever. This is
Speaker 1: just the mates accidentally clipped me and it's just bled.
Speaker 1: But I think the day after, I wake up in
Speaker 1: the morning and it is not purple. And we had
Speaker 1: a meeting with Cricket Australia. We were going to share
Speaker 1: our stories about our players being reintroduced from suspensions with
Speaker 1: them as they were gearing up for Bancroft and Warner
Speaker 1: and Smith and I had to ring him beforehand and
Speaker 1: said I'll be there, just I just want to warn it.
Speaker 1: I've got a black eye. It was so embarrassing, and
Speaker 1: they're all like, what happened? And I just had to
Speaker 1: try to go with the same story every time. Just
Speaker 1: a mate accidentally clipped me.
Speaker 2: And so what did happen?
Speaker 3: I'm telling you, you can't give that field up and
Speaker 3: then tell the.
Speaker 1: True story well without giving names away. Had a meal
Speaker 1: with a few mates and we were getting in a taxi.
Speaker 1: I was in the middle of the back seat of
Speaker 1: the taxi and as the third mate got in, he
Speaker 1: just threw an elbow basically, and I remember sitting there going,
Speaker 1: you clipped me, then you got me.
Speaker 3: And he got in and he's like, did n you
Speaker 3: want me to do it again?
Speaker 1: And I said, don't do it again, because you got me,
Speaker 1: I'm telling you. And anyway, off we went and we
Speaker 1: finished the night, and the next day I rocked up
Speaker 1: and I've got this black one. He's the same guy's
Speaker 1: going what happened to you? And I'm going, don't you remember?
Speaker 1: And he's like, I told him what happened, and he went,
Speaker 1: I didn't get you like that? You got me, mate,
Speaker 1: Like seriously, I was this close to whacking about thinking
Speaker 1: you did it deliberately. But yeah, so I had to
Speaker 1: do press conferences postgame, and the media like they got
Speaker 1: no doubt, they would have been ringing everywhere, digging, trying
Speaker 1: to work out, and I was sitting back giggling because
Speaker 1: I knew there was no story. Someone try to say
Speaker 1: Aaron Francis had had a blue and whack me or
Speaker 1: something like that, and I'm thinking serious, like it was
Speaker 1: going to be funny to see what they try to
Speaker 1: come up with. But anyway, that's a little one.
Speaker 2: I have heard of a straight elbow. So my final
Speaker 2: question is when you reflect on all of it, what
Speaker 2: are you most proud of as the man that you
Speaker 2: are as opposed to the coach.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I just think overall that I've lived an authentic life.
Speaker 1: I would like to just say that that I've been
Speaker 1: true to my own values and beliefs. I haven't bent
Speaker 1: because someone else wanted you to be a certain way.
Speaker 1: I think that's probably the lesson I've tried to push
Speaker 1: to coaches i've worked with is just do it your way,
Speaker 1: be yourself. You learn all the time, and you adapt
Speaker 1: and change, but don't ever do something that doesn't feel
Speaker 1: right for you, for your personality. Don't try to be
Speaker 1: something that you're not. And I think I've done that
Speaker 1: throughout my whole career. And yeah, so when people say
Speaker 1: stand up for yourself, I say, look, it doesn't phaze me.
Speaker 1: It's water off a ducks back. When I've said it
Speaker 1: in the moody before, it's true. It's just like I'm
Speaker 1: just doing my job and they're doing their job. I
Speaker 1: don't have any personal grudges with anyone.
Speaker 2: Wisha, thank you so much for giving me so much
Speaker 2: of your time, and I really hope you just enjoy
Speaker 2: the time with your family now and whatever the future holds,
Speaker 2: it holds. But yeah, I really appreciate that you shared
Speaker 2: your story.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Narrowie.
Speaker 1: Hopefully it's a story for everyone in terms of hopefully
Speaker 1: helping people. But that's the most I've ever talked about myself,
Speaker 1: So you've done well.
Speaker 2: Thanks Bush.
Speaker 3: On time.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to Ordinarily Speaking. I hope you enjoyed
Speaker 2: the chat. If you want to get in touch, follow
Speaker 2: at Ordinarily Underscore Speaking on Instagram and at Narrowly Underscore
Speaker 2: Meadows on Twitter. A new episode will land on Wednesday.
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